The Ables Read online

  Now he chuckled. “This is not a joke, son, I promise you that. This is the most serious conversation you and I have ever had. And if you can just be open … and listen … then I’ll tell you what I’m talking about and why we had to keep it secret from you until now.”

  I simply nodded, not realizing the gravity of what I was agreeing to learn. He said “super powers,” right?

  He spoke rapidly and nervously. “Superheroes, like the ones in your comic books—sort of—are real. They’re real.” He paused but started right back up. “They stop criminals all over the world on a daily basis. Some fly and some have super strength. There are thousands of various known super powers, which you’ll learn about in school this year, but I’m getting ahead of myself.” He breathed deeply to reset his thoughts. “You’ll have to forgive me. This is my first father-son superhero talk.”

  I nodded again, still not quite caught up. I was just nodding out of reflex. Much of what he was saying was slipping right past me while I mostly just heard the word “superhero” echoing around in my brain.

  “You come from a long line of superheroes—called custodians—from your grandparents on back to your grandparents’ great-great-great-grandparents. Your mother and I have powers. As far back as our family tree extends, it consists of bona fide heroes. People who had secret identities and super powers and sacrificed their time and effort to help protect their fellow man. In Roman and Greek mythology, they called them gods. In comic books, they call them superheroes. But the two groups are of the same lineage.

  “We are extremely careful, which is why you never hear about custodians on the news.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “There are also some memory-related super powers, and those have also helped to keep us under the radar for the most part.

  “This town, Freepoint, is a custodian town. There are two more like it in the world. They are safe havens for heroes and those who support them. Everyone that lives here is either a custodian or what’s known as human support—non-empowered individuals who assist and support the custodian community in a variety of very important ways.” Another deep breath.

  “We moved here for you, son. For you and your brother. We moved here so that you could go to high school with other boys your age, all of whom are just now getting their powers … like you are. So you can learn to use them safely and effectively and then go on to be a productive member of the custodian community.” He paused for a moment. “Do you have any questions so far?”

  I sat there silently for what felt like a very long time, slowly beginning to comprehend what he was telling me, even as I still struggled to believe it could possibly be the truth. My father was telling me that I had inherited super powers and was about to go to a special high school for superheroes … in a special town for superheroes.

  I sighed loudly in a manner that could only have sounded like relief, because that’s what it was. “I thought you were going to talk to me about sex.”

  Dad’s genuine laughter is a lot more pleasant to listen to than the goofy chuckle he fakes after all his puns, and it tore through the quiet farm air. “You thought I wanted to talk to you about sex?” he asked, spurting and choking each word through his guffaws. “That’s the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard,” he gasped. “Oh dear, no!” His laughter was still going stronger. “The last thing I want to talk to you about is sex!”

  Another tidal wave of calm washed over me. I laughed too, nervously at first. Eventually we were both giggling together until he suddenly stopped for a moment. “I mean—” he stammered, “unless you think you need to have a talk about …” The wave of calm rushed abruptly back out to sea.

  “No,” I blurted out, a bit more emphatically than necessary.

  “Because,” he continued, “I just assumed you would pick up most of what you’d need through the general course of your life, but if you ever have anything you want to ask me about—“

  This time I cut him off. “Dad, it’s fine! I’m cool. I’m good. Can we please just stop talking about this?!”

  “No wonder you’ve been acting so strangely. You thought this was the birds and the bees talk,” he realized aloud, still chortling here and there.

  “We did the birds and the bees in sixth-grade health class anyway,” I informed him, still feeling a need to build a case against a lesson about sex.

  “I thought so,” he said knowingly.

  We sat silently for a minute or two, my dad still enjoying the comedy of the situation and me basking in the knowledge that this was not, in fact, “the talk.” It was a nice moment.

  “Well, then,” he proclaimed, taking the conversational wheel again, “a conversation about how you have super powers ought to be a nice surprise for you then, shouldn’t it?”

  “Dad, I don’t understand. But if you’re talking about my enhanced hearing or whatever, I don’t think that qualifies as a super power.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Phillip.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know this is a mountain of new information being thrown at you all at once, and I’m sorry it has to be that way. It’s going to take some time to sink in, I know that. It was the same way when your grandpa had this talk with me—in this very spot, actually.”

  “Grandpa had super powers?” I had never known the man, but my parents had always told me he was a kindly old gentleman who liked telling bad jokes—go figure. And that he had died in a car accident before I was born.

  The lesson continued. “He did. My father had an ability called absorption, which allowed him to make use of the powers of other heroes nearby. He could lift an aircraft carrier over his head without breaking a sweat or run from here to Paris and back in ten seconds … as long as the right heroes were near him. He was, for a time, the most powerful hero in the world.”

  “So … he wasn’t a traveling salesman?”

  “No,” he said with a chuckle. “No, your grandpa was one of the greatest custodians that ever lived. They called him the “Everyman”—this was back when we still used silly monikers like “Super Guy” and “Awesome Man” and so forth. Today they just, you know … fight crime. We don’t have costumes anymore. But your grandfather did. He wore the deepest blue cape with silver trim.” I instantly pictured a small blue and silver figurine my father had always kept in the glass cabinet in his office. It was a man holding a giant rock over his head. “He was one of the last superheroes that kept up with all the theatrical elements of fighting crime. He put more villains behind bars than all of his peers combined. And he was absolutely fearless about fighting crime.”

  It was clear these memories were as fresh as yesterday to my father. And he sounded incredibly proud.

  A somber thought came over me. “He didn’t die in a car crash, did he?”

  I felt Dad’s demeanor sag a bit. “No. He was killed in action. He was killed by one of the world’s most notorious super-villains, named Artimus, one of the worst to ever live.”

  I could tell there was more to the story. A lot more. But he didn’t seem to want to go into more detail.

  I decided to steer the subject back to something less depressing. “And you got your powers from him?”

  Dad’s posture snapped back to normal as he climbed out of his moment of mourning. “That I did, correct. He and my mother.”

  “So you have the sharing power too?” I didn’t know how it worked; I simply assumed you got the power from one of your parents.

  “Sadly, no. Heroes only have a one in ten chance of inheriting the power of one of their parents. And my father’s power was exceedingly rare. There have only been a handful of absorbers in recorded history. My powers are mental. Wait … let me back up a bit first,” he said, getting animated. Some of this had been bottled up inside him for years, and now he was finally able share it with his son. “There are two kinds of super powers: mental and physical. Some powers cross a bit into both categories, and we call those hybrids, but those are pretty rare. Mental powers are, naturally, powers of
the mind. Things like mind-reading, cognitive enhancement, super memory. Whereas physical powers are usually things like super strength, flight, various members of the eye-beam family, and so on.

  “There are more than two thousand known super powers, and most of them aren’t even very spectacular or exciting. Like exceptional abilities in the area of math, science, and engineering. These heroes can do things on a whole other level from even the most intelligent non-empowered humans, able to do with their brains the kinds of things most folks need a computer for. Some custodians just have exceptional hand-eye coordination or hyper-fast reflexes. The flashiest powers—X-ray vision or invisibility—those are actually more rare than you might think. Our family was pretty lucky. Blessed with good genes, I guess.”

  I had been pretty patient so far, but it was killing me. “What’s my super power, Dad?”

  “Why, it’s the same as mine, Phillip. Telekinesis.”

  Telekinesis. Telekinesis. What the heck is telekinesis? I raced frantically through the various storage cubbies in my brain, rummaging around for some previous memory or mention of that word, finding nothing. But I knew one thing: it sounded lame.

  “What’s telekinesis?” I asked nervously, assuming it was somehow related to the phone or the TV. I braced myself for the worst. Please don’t tell me I’m a human telephone. This could only happen to me. Only I could find out at twelve that I have super powers but then have them turn out to be something useless, like the ability to send radio signals.

  “Telekinesis is the ability to move things with your mind.” He hesitated, letting the definition sink in. “Just by thinking it, you could potentially send this picnic table hurtling across the cornfield.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can’t move things with my mind, Dad. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’ve tried it before, like a thousand times.” I was dejected. What kid hasn’t tried to move something with his brain? And like every other kid, I had never even sniffed success.

  “Of course you tried it. Every kid ever born has tried it. You just couldn’t do it because your powers weren’t ready yet. You know that birds and bees stuff? I’m sure they talked to you in school about … you know … maturing and the body changes and—”

  “Dad! Yes, okay? Geez.”

  “Well, it’s kind of the same way with your powers. Most boys get their powers around eleven or twelve. You probably haven’t tried to move something with your mind for several years. You probably gave up on it a long time ago, right?”

  I nodded, realizing he was correct.

  “You just have to overcome a few obstacles,” he tacked on.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Like … an initiation?”

  He chuckled some more. “No, son. Like your blindness.” He leaned in closer. “You see, telekinesis relies on your ability to know the intimate details of an object’s dimensions in order for you to be able to move it mentally. Proximity—how far you are away from the object—plays a role as well, but it’s not as important as how accurately you can judge its weight and length and shape. Typically, we telekinetics use our eyes to gain that knowledge of an object … to know every curve and corner. I could pick out an ear of corn over there in the field and have it in my hands at a moment’s notice, but only because I can see it.”

  “Dad, you have to do it!” I knew he was going to do it before I even asked. He may be a dork, but I have the coolest dad in the world.

  The late afternoon breeze had tempered, and it was as quiet as you would think a farm in the middle of nowhere would be. The only sound I heard was the sound of the vegetable smacking the palm of his hand. He reached over and opened my hand, and placed the corn in my grasp. I felt it up and down and was instantly sure that my father had just blown my mind. I was dumfounded. Speechless.

  Up until now, this was an entirely academic conversation. Theoretical and abstract. Now, though, it just got real in a hurry.

  Sensing my growing awe, Dad continued. “If you could see it—every kernel, every piece of husk and string—you’d have a mental picture good enough for your powers to send it flying back across the field. But even without your sight, your powers are still there. The more familiar you are with an object, the easier it will be for you to move it. You can acquire with touch, over time, what another telekinetic could see with his eyes in an instant. Put down the corn and get your phone out.”

  I did as instructed, setting the corn on the table beside me. I had a pretty swanky mobile device that had games and Internet and a lot of other cool features a blind kid couldn’t use, but it also had speech-to-text. I may not have been glued to it like most kids, but I’d used it enough to be very familiar with it.

  “Roll it around in your hand. You’ve that thing for nearly two years, Phillip. You know what all the buttons do, where they’re located. You know how heavy the phone is and its shape.”

  He was right. It was like an extension of my hand.

  “Now place it on the bench between your feet.” Something in his tone changed as he shifted from father into trainer. This was one of those moments where I don’t realize the significance until much later.

  Again, I did as he asked.

  “Pay special attention to where the phone is on the bench—feel for your feet and the edges of the wood. Make sure you know which way the phone is facing and pointing.” His voice was calm and smooth, like a meditation.

  I felt around, using my fingers to get a “picture” of the phone’s position. Dad kept on guiding me. “Hold your right hand out over the area where the phone is, straight out in front of you.” I did.

  We both sat there for a moment, anxious or excited or both. I know I was both.

  “Now, I want you to pull up your mental picture of the phone. Remember how it’s positioned. It hasn’t moved. Everything about it is exactly the way you left it, just two feet below your hand. Concentrate on that image, son.”

  I wasn’t about to start questioning him now. The man had just tractor-beamed an ear of corn into his hand, for crying out loud. I tried to focus on the phone … how it had felt in my hand … how it must have looked sitting down there on the picnic table bench. I tried to clear my mind of anything else.

  “Now will it into your hand, son. I want you to silently picture the phone zipping up from the bench and into your hand.” He kept encouraging me while I kept trying to figure out how to do what he was telling me to do. “Visualize it happening, and try and make it happen with just your focus alone. Just keep visualizing it over and over again.”

  I tried. I tried as hard as I knew how. But I had never moved something with my brain before. I didn’t know how to flip that switch.

  “You can do it, Phillip. I believe in you.”

  Several moments passed with me exerting every kind of willpower I could muster, but the phone refused to budge. I thought I felt a headache coming on. I began to realize that this was all a waste of time. My parents were wrong about me. I didn’t have super powers. I was just another normal, boring blind kid.

  I gave up and felt his hand gently patting my shoulder almost instantly. I geared myself up for a pep talk about how it’s going to take time and we’ll keep trying—you know, all those encouraging things fathers usually say to their sons.

  Instead, I got something else. “We’re going to stay here as long as it takes for you to get it.” He wasn’t saying it in a mean way. This wasn’t that threatening parental tone that the words might suggest. His voice was actually still completely soothing and loving. “Because I know you can do it.”

  I see, I thought. He still thinks I just need to try harder. I figured I would need to tell him just how hopeless I thought this was. “Dad, I really focused hard and the thing didn’t budge. I don’t want to disappoint you, but I really don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. How do you even know I have this power anyway?”

  “Well, I know you have this power for a few reasons. First, it’s genetic. We knew from the day you were born what your power was going
to be. Every known power has a distinct genetic signature; it’s in your DNA.

  “Second, I know you have this power because I just know it. I feel it deep within me. You are my son, and when I look at you … I just know.

  “And, third—and perhaps most importantly—I know you have this power because you’ve used it before, and I saw you do it.”

  I had already believed him after the first point. It was pretty good. DNA is pretty strong evidence, from what little I knew about science. The second point was just sentimentality, which was fine with me, and it did make me feel good to hear him say it with such a sense of pride. But the third point threw me for a loop. You’d think I would remember using my own super power, particularly since I didn’t know I had it until today.

  Dad could sense my confusion. “Two mornings ago I saw you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock by waving at it. From the far side of the bed.” He paused briefly. “You weren’t fully awake, sleeping soundly like you normally do. And your alarm was going off, so I came in to wake you, just in time to see you flop your arm in the general direction of the bedside table. Your hand was a good two feet away, but the button was pushed down … the alarm was turned off. And you rolled back over like it never happened. It’s how I knew it was time to have this talk with you.”

  “Really?” I’m sure the truly great heroes have better quips at moments like this than I did.

  “You can use your power, son, and you already have. So you don’t have to worry about convincing yourself that you can. You just need to convince yourself that you already did. I’m not asking you to do anything new or anything you haven’t already done before. It’s just repeating a task.” He stood up and stepped down from the bench, standing before me. “Now hold out your hand again.”

  I did.

  “Your body already knows how to do this. Don’t let your brain get in the way. Clear your mind of everything. There is no farm, there is no corn: there is nothing but you, this table, and your phone. It’s not about telling the phone to move—don’t command the phone. Just visualize what you want to have happen. Imagine the successful outcome, and it will become the outcome. Don’t try so hard this time.”